It has been maybe at most Six to Seven hours sense the origonal incident that had brought the team together.. and then apart! There was some gunfire, some people ran away! Some more effectivly than others.. but the mission paramenters were clear, and the team was supposed to make their way back to the central deck above within a decent amount of time. Difficulties with radios had made communication all but impossible.

Too bad things on the ship are a little chaotic and people likley had only started filtering in now.

Andrei will step out into the central deck now, making his way from the restraunt, his step and pacing slow and careful, holding his P90 close to his chest and his gaze always shifting this way and that to make sure there is nothing of immediate danger to the man. He seems to be breathing hard.. probably after a hard hours work destroying some items in another room, but at the very least he has been keeping himself busy.

And dressed! Andrei is now somehow sporting a polo shirt and a pair of khaki pants.. both more than a little illfitting and tugged over his wetsuit.

Stadler was feeling better about things now. Not... great. Not good. Not mediocre. Things were still bad and he was probably going to die here. But at least he wasn't going to die punching some body-builder of a zombie ineffectually while it ripped his throat out.... most likely. At least he'd leave some of those corpses behind. Just being able to properly grip a loaded firearm was enough to bring him some comfort... Some. The pistol itself was in a tactical ready position, his shoes, scavenged black sneakers, tapping more softly on the deck than his dress shoes. This area was... mostly secure, but he knew there had to be something around here. Access to the pool, maybe, or another deck. Maybe even a security room, somewhere he could pick up more thna a single spare clip. But it looks like this was going to be kept short.

He was about to round the corner, heading toward the Restuarant, before he stopped and reflexively dashed back behind a call. "Fuck." He said, softly to himself, before trying to peek just a bit from around the corner. Civilian dress, and a P90. Not Chinese... mercenary? Some surviving security force? Or something worse?

There was the possibility, given his weapon, he could be a friend, but there wasn't a uniform, and he didn't recognize him. He couldn't take the chance.

After searching around for the other members of the team and finding nobody else attempting to rendezvous at the bridge, Rachel and Chase(?) had returned to the top deck to see if they could find anyone, "This is Leadership Actual, to all members of the team, report in if you can hear this."

Chase steps up to Rachel, off her right shoulder, weapon safed. He subjects the area to a constant visual scan, head on a proverbial swivel. /He/ can hear, but that's a given. He steels himself for potential threats, ready to ventilate anything presenting as hostile to either himself or Rachel.

When Andrei's radio screechs aloud with Rachel's voice, he'll give a visible shudder and move to shut it off. "Fucking christ!" He'll gasp out then before he looks about the deck then and make his way to the central room, stepping towards the top deck, his eyes focusing on Rachel and Chase from afar, moving to approach the pair as he keeps his gun lowered as he moves towards them, lips twisted into a frown, though the expression his hidden behind his respirator as he moves.

"Well, wasn't expecting to see you two here.." Andrei will offer dryly as he steps towards the pair, looking between them then with a slight dip of his chin as he approaches.

Caldwell finally arrives on the deck, looking at his teammates and giving a light wave to the group. His P90 is slung over his shoulder and he has no emotion on his face at the moment, a true neutral if you will. "So what did I miss?" he asks, obviously knowing he's late.

Richard Stadler paused from his around a corridor, attempting to spy from an area that doesn't reveal himself just yet... if it works. He hasn't been special forces, previously, admittedly. Still... this was looking better. Team of 4... two of them partners, armed similarly. If they were a mercenary group, they were well trained, and organized... and given that they all /looked/ American, instead of French... All right. Probably people that would be able to help. BUt he wasn't sure just yet. He needed just a bit more intel... assuming he wasn't spotted just yet.

"This place is a god damned maze, I knew this mission was a bad idea." As Rachel watched other members of the team appear not long after her check-in, "We need to find Corporal Henrique, he's carrying the satlink and then we need to plant these charges and get the hell off this ship. Forget about intel gathering, we came, we saw. Everyone's dead."

Something had been following Rick, or someone rather since his early look for some supplies that would help him survive. Rick heard the words, "Help me." Barely above a whisper, a girl in a bikini was behind him, her hair covering her face entirely as she crawled towards him, another survivor just like him.

"Ready to roll on your order," Chase responds, nodding. "Sooner we can find Henny, grab the satlink, plant the charges, and get off this rock, the better." He agrees, patting the explosives he's carrying.

Andrei's chin lifts ever so slightly in response to Rachel's words, his lips twisting into a frown. "Not to contradict you, Sir, Maim, Miss, Commander... er, whatever.. but i have already encountered two individuals of interest." He'll turn his gaze to look down the deck as he keeps his P90 at the ready at a momments notice, though his gaze shifts to look back at the restraunt. "One Markus Berger. Commander Wesker worked with him during the Raccoon City crisis.. a person of interest that we might consider working with and extracting." He'll take a nother momment to let that sink in, "Second is a young woman, Graham, or so she claims. There are also individuals with firearms on the ship, and my prelimanary scouting shows that there is some food here to survive for at least a few days."

"Depending on the situation.. we should round up some of the civilians and send them down into the holds to help clear out some of the sealed of areas.. sounds like the places we have to plant the bombs are teeming with the infected.. so every extra pair of hands will help. Problem is.. figuring out who is trustworthy." He'll take a second then to chuckle. "But sense we are their only ride out of here alive.. I'm sure they'll be amiable to working with us."

Caldwell quietly looks around the area, proceeding to walk over to Chase BankTM and nodding "So where do we head?" he asks of Rachel. To Andrei he gives a brief nod. Prepping his P90, giving it a quick reload and stuffing the half empty mag into his pocket "We don't have enough ammo to clear this entire ship so we have to be smart about this I guess."

Everything clicked into place, after Rachel spoke. Military rank, and the way they spoke. Still could be a corporate team, but /finally/, one of them mentioned 'Commander Wesker', and unless Wesker was running /two/ of these goddamn groups, that was the answer. One of those people in a wetsuit turned the right way, and Rick could see the symbol he was looking for, too. Finally, the goddamn cavalry. Though they didn't know he was here, probably. The coincidence would have been massive, and he didn't exactly say /where/ he was going on vacation. When he left. It was time-"

National Guard Rick would have probably walked over to her, ready to check her vital signs. The exact reaction he would have before Raccoon City. One could weep for his humanity, but paranoia was paranoia.

The weapon is his hands comes up, pointing to her on the ground. "Ma'am. You need to stop where you are. We'll get you help, but we need to examine you first. Don't come any closer." And finally, keeping his eyes on the woman, he'd yell out. "FBC! Two survivors! One possible infected! On me, furthur aft!"

As Richard is calling out to the FBC Team, the girl crawling towards him /screeched/ loudly. It was horrifying to behold, the kind of thing that made your eardrums feel like they were about to pop. As she did this, her face split open and a massive tentacle sprouted from her head and lashed out at Rick, octopus like suckers on the end of it trying to grab a hold of him.

Note: +roll Courage. 2 Successes Minimum or take a -1 to all rolls from the Screech.

Andrei takes the time then to move off towards the side. He takes a hurried pace.. and seeing the sight of some sort of disturbing beast trying to latch itself onto Richard.. well, he'll lift up his gun and pull the trigger twice, just two presses, and unload just two rounds at the beast, clearly intent on saving ammunition as his eyes narrow and carefully keep his eyes on the prize! Saving Stadler.. then promplty probably forgetting about him.

Caldwell stands his ground and raises his P90, taking two brief potshots at the tentacled girl and clenching his teeth at the screech, grunting as he pops the shots at her. He quickly prepares to fire again, awaiting for his teammates to HOPEFULLY back him up "Could use a hand here!"

Oh God. Not again. Lord, not this again. The woman did stop... Before her head split open, and let out that loud, ear piercing screech that pressed on the eardrums and scratched the goddamn soul. Rick could handle it. He really could. He managed to keep it together through remembering the past. Remembering training. But it was almost with disbeleif that the tentacle strikes him over the chest. It was happening all over again, and a small part of him was sincerely annoyed at how they kept going straight for his goddamn chest.

There's no armor there, lancing and cutting into his stomach, slicing flesh and possibly exposing a rib. His arm grips it tightly, pressing the shirt over it to try and staunch the bleeding, as he falls back. His gun was up, but there's important things. More important things.

"Captain Stadler, Research! The Liberty has that busted system on Deck 7. We need to go! We need to go /now/!" He says. It was a simple command, but important. "Stairwell down! The staterooms can be secured!"

Rachel took a deep breath and held the trigger on her P90 down as she let it loose on full automatic, her life not worth conserving ammunition as almost half a clip was unloaded in a split second; one of the true beauties of having military technology.

"Fall back, fall back. That is an order." Rachel commanded, not bother to take Rick very seriously at the moment. Not because she fully doubted him, but because he had not been placed in command of the Operation.

Rick was just one of the civilians as far as she was concerned, albeit one that they would extract.

As all this is happening Doctor Berger in company of his bodyguard enters arrives on the deck, only for him to briefly recoil at the sight of one of the mutants he had been told about being right there and attacking someone before shifting into a combat stance. After all, gunshots and monsters aren't exactly hard to miss. "Oh damn..."

Not far behind Markus, there is Kalin Mikhailov with his SMG by his side. Already taking his gun, who wouldn't after hearing gunshots? As he notices the Doctor shifting into a combat stance himself, "Should we retreat, Doctor? We already have supplies for the next few days, it is safer to avoid direct combat given our situation."

As Markus and Kalin step into the area, they find the team of what appear to be special operations soldiers in the midst of combat with a very pretty young woman in a bikini whose entire face is split open with a massive tentacle lashing out.

They have little time to ponder the situation as they notice approximately thirteen zombies following in their direction.

It seems the dynamic duo had attracted attention back in the dining areas....

Andrei isn't a fool, he knows when it is time to flee! When the undead show up that means that things are just about to get more heated.. and so the 'agent' or 'coward' as some might call him will lift up his P90, flip a switch to full-auto and just start spraying bullets in the general area of the woman who probably wasn't half-ugly before being infected with whatever the fuck is wrong with her.

Even as he continues to try and pepper the field with more and more bullets.. Andrei is backing away, quickly, incredibly quickly and moving towards the stairwell.. only stopping just shy of running down the stairs... hesitating for a single second.

The Hentaigirl B.O.W. tried to attack chase with her wounded tentacle but missed, instead leaping over towards the man and knocking him over. Lucky for Chase though, she was interested in other targets and didn't seem to be in a rush to attack him as she scrambled after the group much slower than she had been before.

Being the overeager fool he is Markus tries to run past the monster and get a punch in... which doesn't work out the way he planned to as it instead grabs his arm with a tentacle and breaks it, badly, before wringing his arm out of the grip. The next thing to likely break are his teeth considering how badly he is grinding them.

Kalin advances towards the ugly girl with a bikini, his SMG firing a small burst of bullets at her given that she seemed to be the focus of the... others out there. When Markus ran towards the monster... WHO RUNS TOWARDS THE MONSTERS! THIS IS XXI CENTURY! YOU HAVE AUTOMATIC GUNS! THEIR FIRERATE OUTDOES THE PUNCHING POWER OF A HUMAN! With considerably volume and accent, the Russian bodyguard began... loudly speaking towards the Markus, "DOCTOR! RETREAT! MOVE AWAY FROM IT! DON'T GET CLOSER! GO TO OUR SAFE LOCATION! I WILL HOLD IT BACK AS LONG AS POSSIBLE! FOLLOW THE PLAN!" If that man died here, even if he survived... he already imagined how badly things could go for him back home. If, he was even able to make it out of the place without the doctor.

Rachel lays down some further fire with her P90 before running right past Andrei and straight down the stairs, she had ordered a retreat. She wasn't going to disobey her own orders by holding position up top, the team was trained. They had to be able to handle themselves.

She ran right down the stairs, "Fall back! Fall back!" Full panic mode now.

Noting the ever-increasing odds stacking against him, Chase attempts to bug out right behind Andrei and Rachel. Today is not a good day to die. No fucking way. Those who fight and run away live to fight another day.

Well, it seemed that the orders had been given out. And there isn't really much of a reason to repeat them. Rachel did seem to be in command of this operation, after all, and shouting it a second time wouldn't help. Time to get out of here. He fires one round, slamming it into the things leg, /hoping/ that would slow the bitch down long enough for them to fall back. "Move! Come on, move it!" He yells... seeing that Chase and Andrei were still at the stairs themselves. He should be running past them...

And one of these days, he was going to learn about just running as fast as he can to justify his own survival. He grips the would, standing with them at the stairs, attempt to get them to move down together with all the guns. "Get going, goddamn it! You can bleed out later!"

Markus himself also does the only reasonable thing left now as he too retreats like mad past anyone present. After all, his bodyguard right now is covering his escape... who is now going to get shouted at as well. "RETREAT YOURSELF! RIGHT NOW!" And with that Markus is running away damn quickly. At least quicker than he has any right to be, especially with that arm.

It's a tense and deadly moment, one complicated by the gathering of multiple individuals who had all attracted unwelcome attention in their bid to survive.

The shambling undead are the least threat present and they disperse, some heading for the stairs, the rest heading for Kalin.

The Hentaigirl B.O.W. seems to have had enough of the fight for now, clearly it had a 'self-preservation' instinct of sorts and with all the damage it sustained it limps off towards the area the pool was....

Andrei is saved by a lifetime of being a coward, because when the slimey black armored creature that resembled a cross between a Lobster and a Licker dropped down from seemingly nowhere in front of him and attempted to attack; it missed.

Luckily for Andrei, escape is but a momment away, and with him standing right next to the stairwell.. even as whatever the hell is in front of him drops down.. Andrei lifts up his P90 and with just a quick pull of the trigger.. returns the lovetap that the licker tried to give him!

Luckily for him.. escape wasn't far away after that as he turns and bolts down the stairwell.

Some people say that retreating is a cowardly thing to do. Those people are wrong. The Russians were not cowards when they defeated Hitler and Napoleon. Retreat is a basic strategy and a very effective one when something else can deal with your enemies for you. All you gotta do is know when is the right time. Kalin wondered briefly, 'Is now a good time to run? The doctor should be far enough now, shouldn't he?' But then, he noticed something. While he didn't slow down his moving through the area, he looked upwards and even towards the pool. That was the right time.

The Russian bodyguard ran. It wasn't a mere sprint. He could probably have competed against Valeriy Borzov himself! And WON! Or maybe that was merely him too high on adrenaline, running as fast as he could attempting to be sure that he didn't die, now or later. Kalin ran past the FBC people, off and way. He had to meet Markus later after ensuring there was nothing following him.

The Abyss Licker is poised to attack as Andrei makes his way down the stairwell, moving much faster than either Rick or Chase could have hoped to in this situation. They said you didn't have to run faster than a cheetah, only faster than your friend. This was very much the same type of situation.

As the Licker leaps to attack, Richard, Chase and Kalin hear the sound of a helicopter making a pass over the ship.

They also hear and see the effects of a chin mounted machine gun as it tears the Licker apart and rips through the group of undead on the deck. Unfortunately for Rick, the corpse of the Licker still sails towards him, knocking him down the stairs in a tumble!

Given their military training, they would identify the helicopter as a Russian made Mil Mi-24 'Hind'. Likely in operation by the Chinese....

....At the bottom of the stairs, there is no sign of William Caldwell or Rachel. Just a trail of blood leading down the corridor...

The right thing to do was often the stupid thing to do. And one of these days, Rick was going to figure that out. Or train himself up until he's able to do that without getting himself mauled again, and again. So he does, getting that damned horrifying tenticle right where he was wounded badly /last/ time. One of these days, he was going to lose his stomach.

These are the idle thoughts that Rick has in some deep corner of his psyche after he sees that Licker drop from the ceiling, yelling loudly as it landed. Thinking of shooting now was not something he was going to do. It was a miracle he manged to keep a grip on the gun in the first place. Now was the time to run with every bit of pain-dulling, endurance boosting effort aderenline gave. To get somewhere safe, and ride out the pain that was coming.

He could be forgiven, perhaps, for not noticing the gunship swipe across the deck. He'd feel alot better about things if they happened to know there were friendlies here ,instead of just things to shoot.

He tumbles down the stairs, the corpse of the licker slamming him down, something hard and spiney /thunking/ into his chest. With a heave, and a inarticulate sound of pain, he pushes that corpse off, and then scrambles toward the deck, to the elevator. The others-

The others weren't there. The two other FBC officers were missing blood stains. Just fucking perfect.

He looks back. Maybe Chase was still their, or Andreai. "My... State room. Deck.... Deck 10. Get over there. We need to talk."

Andrei for his part has managed to get out of this thing more or less unscathed. A few dozen rounds of ammo less, sure but he was looking pretty good health wise. No bones broken, not bleeding anywhere, just a nagging pain in his left leg that hadn't healed quite right sense a few months ago.. and then there is Richard and Chase who get a curious look then as the man turns his gaze to look the pair over.

"I've got nothing better to do. You better stem that bleeding first before we talk though." Andrei responds then, his tone impish as he moves down the stairs, trotting down quite easily as he pauses only every so often to check and make sure nothing is trying to murder him.